


the rains begin to shower (covering me in blue)

by punkrockbadger



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Backstory, Before Hogwarts, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-27
Updated: 2014-08-27
Packaged: 2018-02-15 01:17:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2210190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/punkrockbadger/pseuds/punkrockbadger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Edward Joseph Tonks is born on the afternoon of September eighth, as 1953 slowly draws to a close, and spends the first few hours of his life in his dying mother’s arms before being left on the doorstep of an orphanage once the sun had fallen below the horizon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the rains begin to shower (covering me in blue)

Edward Joseph Tonks is born on the afternoon of September eighth, as 1953 slowly draws to a close, and spends the first few hours of his life in his dying mother’s arms before being left on the doorstep of an orphanage once her eyes had closed one last time and the sun had fallen below the horizon. He sleeps peacefully, a twenty pound note clutched in his tiny hand and the appropriate papers pinned to his ragged brown blanket.

When he is older, he will find out that his parents were childhood sweethearts who married before his father went off to war, and that the man who returned from the war was hardly the same one who’d left. He will find out that his mother died giving birth to him, and his father, the man who had promised to love and care for him, took one look at him, recognized his wife’s features, and left him out in the night without a second thought. He will find an obituary that is barely three lines long, see the same wavy, sandy blond hair, button nose and gray eyes on a beautiful young woman and then refuse to speak for a week.

But that is all later, as baby Edward is currently sound asleep on a doorstep, and will be discovered in the morning, when the proprietress of the establishment comes out to grab the morning paper.

* * *

He is young, far too young, when he runs away from the orphanage, maybe seven or eight years old, and crouches beneath a large piece of metal leaned against a building when night falls, shivering as he tucks his nearly blue hands under his armpits to warm them. His coat is threadbare, the blanket he’d stuffed in his backpack more patches than blanket, and the little food he’d thought to bring had been eaten within three hours of him leaving the orphanage.

“I could go back.” He says to no one in particular. “But I’d be caned. Yikes.”

“Who’s that?” A rough, gravelly voice calls down the abandoned alley and he bites his lip hard to keep from making a single noise. The sheet of metal providing him a semblance of invisibility moves with a screech to rid him of his shelter, and he looks up to see a grimy boy a few years older than him grinning down at him. “What’s yer name, kid?”

“Ted.” He says, wanting to make something new for himself. He’s been called Edward constantly, ever since he can remember, occasionally Eddie by some of the kids, and he wants to start over. “Call me Ted.”

“Right, Ted. M'name’s Alan.” The older boy winks and helps him up. “Let’s get ya somethin' warmer, eh? One of the littler boys is bound to have somethin’ in yer size.”

“Yeah.” Ted says, ducking his head in mild embarrassment as he follows the older boy. Don’t talk to strangers, he belatedly remembers, but when Alan helps him through the doorway of a rotting old shack to reveal a whole bunch of boys just like him, Ted can’t help but think that maybe that rule was made to be broken.

* * *

He is ten when he sees it.

He has a particular talent for wheedling money out of people, so he rarely resorts to picking pockets, if he can avoid it. The work he is doing is rarely honest, but it fills him to the brim with stories that he catches from snatches of overheard conversations. Ted has always liked stories. And today has taken him to the posh side of town, a place he rarely goes, since he sticks out like a sore thumb with his muddy face, unwashed hair and ill-fitting coat that is more patches than anything else.

He is walking along the street, absentmindedly reading the names of the families off the placards in front of the large houses, before stopping at a familiar one.

"Tonks", the polished brass board reads, and as he watches, a man with the same lanky build and protruding ears as Ted exits the house, two smiling and cheering children behind him, and loads them into the back of a fancy automobile. Ted's heart pumps loudly in his chest and the man turns for a second, meets eyes with Ted, and blanches as if he's seen a ghost.

It is then that Ted realizes that the family that he has dreamed of rescuing him, ever since he was young, is well enough off without him, and he spends his night out on the street, in an alley close to the orphanage, and gets soaked by the rain.

Who is he, to be kept?

What makes him special?

Try as he might, even after a whole night spent awake, Ted is still grasping at straws for even one answer.

* * *

He is eleven when he falls sick, just two months short of his twelfth birthday.

It starts off as a painful cough that just won’t go away, rattling his thin frame as he tries to get a good breath or two in, and quickly mutates into something else. Alan had frowned as he looked Ted over every morning, shaking his head grimly as Ted tried vainly to clear his throat.

And then, all of a sudden, one morning, Ted found himself in front of a government building, alone, for the second time in his life.

He and the boys, they had a good run, Ted thinks, as he curls up on the pavement steps, eyes fluttering shut as he wraps his arms around his middle. They’d kept him five years. That’s five more years than the father he’d found in the newspaper ever even thought about.

The next time he wakes, he is inside the hospital and there is a lady sitting by his bedside, flipping the pages of a newspaper whose pictures are moving. He sits up, more scared than he has been in a while, and she looks up from her paper before folding it and tucking it away into a pocket of her coat. “Edward Tonks?”

“That’d be me.” He says, hesitant, and twiddles his thumbs as she hands him a letter. “For me?”

“For you.” She says, adjusting the glasses that have slid down her nose.

He skims the letter, skipping over the bigger words that he doesn’t understand, before blinking owlishly at her. “I’m a what, now?”

“A wizard, Mr. Tonks.” She says, calmly, as if a wizard were the most normal thing to be. “And it is in your best interests if you are trained.”

“And who’d you be, makin’ that call?” Ted asks, frowning, and she sighs, as if she gets that question very often.

“Minerva McGonagall. Professor of Transfiguration at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.” She says and Ted reasons that if she can come up with that title on a moment’s notice, she must be telling the truth.

“Wicked…” He mutters, awestruck, and she smirks.

“So it seems, yes.” She stands, grabbing a tartan traveling bag he hadn’t noticed. “I suppose I am right in assuming that you have accepted your admission, so focus on your recovery for now. Hagrid will be along to help you when we get word that you’ve been released.”

“I—I don’t have any money.” Ted says, burning bright red with embarrassment. “I can’t… pay the hospital. Or for a fancy school, or even the supplies, so I can’t go, I guess—”

“That has all been taken care of. I will be looking forward to seeing you on the first of September, Mr. Tonks.” She says, nodding once in his direction before turning on her heel and disappearing as if she had never been there in the first place before he’s able to squeak out a “Likewise”.

Ted closes his eyes, takes the deepest breath he can without the pain surging up again, and allows himself to hope that he can claim this place as home for as long as they’ll keep him.


End file.
